


A True Story

by iwtv



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alcoholism, Anal Sex, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Physical Abuse, Storytelling, WARNINGS for past non-con behavior, post-finale silverflint reunion, stay away from this if you're a hardcore flinthamilton only shipper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-20 23:00:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11344881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwtv/pseuds/iwtv
Summary: “I want to tell you my past, to separate fact from fiction to the best of my ability,” said John. James pursed his lips together. John was looking at him with a rawness that instantly transported him back into that damnable forest on that fucking day. Why, he wanted to ask, why the fuck did John want to tell him this now?





	A True Story

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so firstly I would like to blame most of this on the wonderful Carla, aka @lukearnold. ;p I know a lot of people on tumblr were wanting a fic that gives a detailed look into Silver's past but also that a lot of us were afraid to write one, but I have way too much time on my hands this week so here this is. PLEASE look carefully at the tags and make no mistake; this is some angsty shit, but with a good ending (I think?) As always feedback is insatiably craved.

There had been an unspoken compromise not to talk about the past.

That made conversation difficult, to say the least, since everything between them was of the past. Yet after the first couple of days they managed to only speak of current events such as the state of piracy, the maroons and the failing treaty they both knew could not have lasted, and the proper way to roast a pig. The last subject was, of course, a joke.

They had progressed, James thought, to jokes.

All around him he felt the pressure of the rift between them gnawing at his heels. It was in their hesitant smiles, in John's eyes when he looked a moment too long at James. It reared its head in their carefully constructed conversations, like a newly woven tapestry whose fragile glass might shatter if the wrong pressure were applied.

Bitterly he wondered what the point of John's visit was. He had shown up on their doorstep as unexpected as snow in the Bahamas, nearly as shocked to have found James as James was to see him. If things could be called uncertain between the two of them when John first alighted on the doorstep, they had been close to hostile between John and Thomas. John took it all rather well, James thought, though he had also reminded James of a scolded dog, letting Thomas’s barely concealed anger slip by.

It had taken some convincing on James's part to get Thomas to concede to any privacy with John but by and by he had agreed, going to town for the day.

He'd kissed James fiercely then, hooking a hand behind his neck and pulling him close.

“Please don't let him upset you,” was all he'd said. They both knew the futility of those words but the emotion behind them had touched James and in all likelihood would make talking to John all the more difficult.

Now, as the sun sat on the third day of John's arrival James thought again of any meaning for John's visit. The pain they had caused one another hovered around them like a fog, obscuring any way forward.

And yet James could not deny it. He was glad to see him again, to know he was alive and well and safe.

Oh, what a new torture was this; as bad as his shamed pining for Thomas had been all those years ago, the agony of being around someone who felt hopelessly out of reach.

He and John had been so close to it, so close so many times. And always they had let it slip away, like sand falling through parted fingers.

Now, as twilight came upon them James built up a fire in the hearth and took off his long coat and boots. He heard the door open and close behind him as John returned from washing up outside, a single heavy thump on the floor announcing his presence. When there was no further movement or sound James turned towards the door. John stood there, his hand still on the doorknob. The look on John’s face caused dread to creep up on him.

John let his grip on the doorknob drop.

“You asked me once about my past,” he said. “About my real past, and I denied it to you.”

Silence when James had expected more. He stirred the fire with the poker.

“I think I understand why you did not tell me,” he replied slowly. “I can only assume if you had had a normal or even happy life before we met, you would have included such a statement in your response to my inquiries, regardless of whether or not you found it unremarkable.”

John did not reply. He left the door and walked over to where a decanter of rum rested on the table. He picked it up and poured a glass without asking. He took a long drink and gave James a tight smile and a toast. James felt his apprehension grow. He forced himself away from the fire and to a chair.

“I want to tell you my past, to separate fact from fiction to the best of my ability,” said John. James pursed his lips together. John was looking at him with a rawness that instantly transported him back into that damnable forest on that fucking day. Why, he wanted to ask, why the fuck did John want to tell him this now?

“I wasn't an orphan,” John began. “But I was born in Whitechapel. I was the only surviving child out of three. I had an older sister who died when I was still a babe, and a younger brother of whom I can only recall his screams for food and the event of his death. He caught the infant's disease, my mother called it, that claims only the very young. He died just after three months in this world. My mother was inconsolable. It was her cries I remember after that. She was always full of sorrow. I would try to cheer her up but it was only ever temporary. In a few hours’ time she would be melancholy again. I was about seven.

My real father had left shortly after my mother had become pregnant the first time so I never knew him. My mother remarried and I had a stepfather. By the time I was ten I had come to understand all too well what the drink did to people because of him. He was a consummate drunk. He would yell at my mother for hours and at me if I were in the room. He seemed to want to antagonize her for pleasure. Once he discovered that hitting me would do the trick, I became the object of his ire, often for no reason other than to upset my mother.

Once when I was twelve he made me go with him to the tavern and watch him and his friends get drunk. He had a whore on one knee and a drink on the other.”

John paused. James could hear his own heart beat in his chest. John leaned against the table and took a deep breath.

“At a certain point,” John continued, “I found myself in a room upstairs with him and the whore. He was laughing as he started touching her. He bade me to come to him on the bed. I was terrified. I did as I was told for fear of a beating. He made me….touch her. Everywhere. She was laughing too. Then he bade me take off my clothes. I protested and started to cry. That earned me a hard smack in the face. So again, I did as I was told. Then he made me drink his brandy until I was dizzy. The whore was….playing with me all the while, touching me. I grew drunk enough that things became blessedly unclear after that. I vaguely remember throwing up later on. I awoke back at home. My mother pretended as though I had been in bed all night. Later, when I tried to tell her what had happened, she insisted she didn't want to hear it.

That event or something akin to it would occur over and over, until I was fifteen. Then, one night when my stepfather had me in the brothel room I hit him over the head with his bottle of half drunk brandy. It wasn't enough to knock him out but it was sufficient enough to daze him long enough for me to escape. I was proud of myself for the rest of the night, until he managed to make it home early the next morning. I was beaten so severely my mother sent for the doctor. Anyway, to shorten things, my stepfather ended up pissing off the wrong person one day. He was found with a bullet in his chest in an alley. They said it was over a gambling debt.

My mother and I lived together for another five months before she was penniless and forced to work as a seamstress. It was no longer practical for me to live with her so I begged one of the few friends I had to allow me to live with him and his family. I was allowed to, granted that I worked to pay my living. The friend's name was Solomon Little. Solomon was a very proficient liar. I learned a lot from him. I learned what betrayal felt like for the first time.”

James watched as John’s eyes flicked painfully to him for a second before looking down at the ground. He took another long drink and continued.

James didn’t realize he had been clutching the arm chair tight enough for his fingers to ache. He let it go.

“We had decided to rob the blacksmith,” said John, “whom Solomon had discovered kept a box full of extra coins buried underneath one of his workbenches. It was Solomon who took it out of the ground, but despite me acting as lookout we were spotted by two random passerby and pursued.

At some point Solomon handed the box to me and was immediately tackled to the ground moments later, shouting out ‘thief!’ and pointing to me.

I was caught soon after and was thrown into a section of the jail for boys. My treatment there was only slightly improved from when my stepfather had been alive in so far as I was not unduly beaten. My mother finally helped procure my release a year later, when she had enough money to effectively buy me back. I parted from her shortly thereafter, finding job after job and living a step above hand-to-mouth. That went on for several more years, until I landed a job as a deckhand on a merchant vessel ship, the same ship that was attacked by Captain Flint.”

John shifted and fixed his gaze on the fire, jaw clenched tightly. James felt frozen to the chair. The silence stretched between them until James forced himself to stand up.

“I don’t know if this information changes anything or not,” said John. His voice sounded delicate to James’s ears. His eyes were moist.

“But it’s the only offering I have for you,” John added, eyes flicking to James and again unable to hold his gaze. It was not something James was at all used to from him. His body compelled him toward John and he felt helpless against it.

“Look at me,” he said softly.

But John would not. He pushed off the table, clenching and unclenching his fists and swallowing hard.

“There is no need to draw this out. You don’t have to say anything,” he said. The shake in his voice was unmistakable. “What happened to me is of no consequence anymore, if it ever was,” he insisted.

 _“Look. At me,”_ James said again, drawing closer. He paused inches in front of John, who had not moved a muscle. He had not even blinked, and when he did, two tears streaked down his cheeks.

“Fuck,” he said between clenched teeth. He wiped furiously at his face. James could hear his breathing, heavy and labored. At last John’s eyes looked up and caught his gaze.

“Don’t you fucking _dare_ feel pity for me,” he said. “That is not why I told you this.”

“Then why did you?”

“I owed it to you.”

“Is that all?”

He saw the lie flash over John’s face, saw it touch the tip of his tongue—and then fly away.

“No,” came the broken reply.

So close. They were so close in every way possible yet again. He could feel the agony from it straining his countenance, knew John saw it as well. He looked down at John’s lips and moved toward them. They did not move away as he met them. Quickly he clasped the back of John’s head, pushing him into it. John’s lips fell open of their own volition, a whimper escaping him. James was unable to suppress the moan that rose from somewhere deep within him, ripping through his being as he pressed them closer together and felt John’s hands close around his waist on both sides, his fingers fisting his shirt.

James devoured him, kissing urgently and hard. John returned everything he gave. James moved down to his neck hungrily.

“Oh _fuck_ James!” It was a broken cry.

Afraid of what his own voice would sound like James instead backed John up into the wall and dug his shirt out of his trousers. He let his hand push up underneath, feeling bare skin for the first time. John racked his fingers through James’s hair, down his jawline and into his shirt. James was fumbling at John’s pants. He didn’t know what the fuck he was doing except that he could not bring himself to stop without a command to do so…

And then he remembered John’s story and he froze, standing up straight.

“I’m sorry,” he panted out. “I’m sorry. I should not have done that…”

“No!”

John grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him close again. The desperation was burning in his eyes, in the single word he’d uttered.

“I want you,” he said.

James felt something inside him burst open, setting his nerves on fire. Everything seemed surreal around him; the cabin, the blazing fire, the simple fact that it was night outside. He looked at John as though he were more myth than man.

“I want you,” John repeated with more confidence this time but no less desperation.

Their lips found one another’s again and this time James pulled him into the bedroom. They shed their clothes quickly enough, but then James paused and racked his eyes over John’s naked form. John looked almost embarrassed; shy and timid and so uncertain now. So much like James McGraw had once looked under the same exposed scrutiny by a lord.

And just as his lord had once told him, James simply said, “Beautiful.”

John’s brows pulled together in awe and confusion. James gently took him, kissing him to the bed. John sat down on its edge.

“Lay back,” said James.

John did so, lifting his head to see what James was doing. James had a bottle of oil and was slicking his fingers. He knelt down on his knees and John spread his legs, crooking his knees. James stifled the groan at the sight of John’s dark cleft. He teased his fingers up and down it, circling John’s hole until John had started to moan. He pushed out the skin around John’s hole and pushed a finger in. His hole immediately fluttered and John hummed deeply. James slid his finger in and out several times, then slipped a second finger inside. His own cock was growing hard, his mouth dry as he thought about taking John, if he would allow such a thing. But even if he had just this…he trembled at the realization of it.

He watched, mesmerized, as his fingers worked John open, until he was sliding inside John with three fingers like butter and John was moaning over and over. Then James held him open with his thumbs and drove his tongue inside.

“Oh!” came the ragged voice above him. John spasmed as James drove his tongue in again and again, then lapped over his hole. He tapped it again with a finger and John’s legs jerked, hole fluttering. James licked a stripe from his hole to his balls, then up John’s shaft to his cock-head, and all the way back down again.

“Oh god, James, _please!”_

He didn’t want this to end. He wanted to give John as much pleasure as he was willing to take. He wanted to make him feel as good as he possibly could.

James stood and draped his body over John’s, leaning down to kiss him. John arched his whole body into James’s.

“What do you want?” asked James. “I need you to tell me.”

John’s eyes searched his own as though the answer were there. Then he said, “I want you to fuck me.”

James closed his eyes. His cock twitched in his pants. There were butterflies in his stomach. He rose and stood in front of John, pulling over his cock. John watched him, tongue licking over his lips absently but making James full of greed.

He lined up his cock at Silver’s hole and pushed his head in. He gasped as John stretched for him.

“Is this all right?” he asked gently.

John nodded, eyes closed and mouth hanging open and _God_ , James could have come then and there. Instead he pushed in further. John kept opening up before him, warm and velvety as he wrapped around James’s cock. He pulled all the way out and pushed back in halfway, watching as John’s hole shrank and then expanded automatically as James filled him. At last James pushed in all the way and they both cursed.

James put his palms over John’s knees and spread him further. He thrusted into him. John’s eyes were hooded and black as he watched, hands fisted into the sheets. James set up a pace, then pushed both of them further onto the bed so he could crawl over John. He needed more, needed to be as close as was humanly possible to him. And John seemed to feel the same. He clung to James’s back, ankles coming up to wrap around the small of his back. James gyrated his hips sharply and John’s eyes rolled back into his head. James kept the motion up, resting his forehead on John’s and panting into his mouth.

“Oh fuck, yes, more,” said John. He was a vision to James. It was, he thought with sudden anguish, probably one of the few times John had ever felt pleasure in his life.

James smothered his lips with his own, driving his tongue down John’s throat as he drove his cock inside him. He bucked wildly into him one moment and slowed down the next. John was beside himself, clinging one moment to James’s hair, then his ass, then the sheets again.

James fucked him hard again, this time leaning back to watch John’s face as it contorted with bliss, mouth hung open. The sounds of his balls slapping against John’s ass sent waves of pleasure through him. He slowed down again and kissed John, running a hand through his thick curls and pulling gently. John let out a gorgeous moan, eyes fluttering open and closed. James watched as he dipped a hand down between them and began stroking himself.

James bent forward and thrust his cock at the same time. He licked over one nipple and then the other so that they were peaked pebbles. John tasted of salt and sweat and something that was entirely only John. He had wanted this, all of it, for so long he could scarcely recall a time when he had _not_ wanted John like this.

And now, after hearing his true story, the ache deep within him was only intensified. He tried to satiate it as best he could in that moment. He fucked John with deep rolls of his hips and assaulted his mouth again, until John broke free for air.

“Oh, I’m close,” he moaned out. James sat up almost straight as he straddled John so he could watch as John jerked hard on himself, his cock impossibly hard and thick and beautiful in his fist. Now it was John who was writhing wildly, bucking himself up over James’s cock. James wrapped his wrists underneath John’s knees and pulled him forward. Then he fucked him hard and fast, until sound after ragged sound passed over John’s lips and then James realized that he too was moaning out loud.

“Come on come on,” he said through clenched teeth, watching John’s cock. Precum covered his fist, slickening his shaft.

“Fuck James,” John bleated. James threw his head back and lost himself. The pressure was impossible, tightly bound and screaming inside him.

“Oh fuuuuck,” John bleated. James looked down to see long spurts of come leave John’s cock as he rolled his fist over himself. Seconds later James’s eyes rolled up and he forced them open, withdrawing from John long enough to see himself start to come. He coated some of John’s cleft and ass before pushing back in. They both cried out. James leaned over John and all but collapsed on him as he finished deep inside John. Then gradually the air itself returned to normal, as did their breathing.

Beneath him he felt John trembling. He pulled himself out and off of him but John’s hands immediately gripped him and kept him close. John turned on his side and James faced him, cupping a hand over his cheek.

He could not think of the words to say. Neither could John apparently. John, who was still trembling and panting and overwhelmed and beautiful. James wrapped an arm and a leg over him, thumb stroking his cheek rhythmically until John’s eyes grew heavy. He finally smiled.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you too,” said James.

There would be difficulties ahead of them, especially where Thomas was concerned. But James was confident in tackling even that. Thomas would be angry, but Thomas also understood James’s heart better than any other. Whatever issues his lover had with John, jealousy of this nature would not be among them.

“James?”

James blinked, coming back into the present.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry, I know this will sound stupid now, but…I need to you to know that was the truth. About me.”

That raw look again which could not tell a lie, not when it illuminated everything John had spent so long hiding, now laid bare for James to see. James bent forward and gave him a chaste kiss.

“I believe you,” he said.

**

_An ocean_  
of  
difference  
exists between  
making love  
and being made by it. 

 

_I promise you_  
I will try harder  
to be better.  
I  
have battled with things  
inside me  
for longer than you know;  
I do not know  
what they are  
or why they are there,  
I only know  
that they feel  
manageable,  
defeatable,  
when I  
am around you. 

-Tyler Knott Gregson


End file.
